Readers Elevate Computer Passwords to Poetry

My lament last week that I am mentally incapable of coming up with any more computer passwords brought all sorts of support from readers. We are not alone, the password-challenged. Will that make us the first to be executed by the computers when they achieve sentience and go on their inevitable rampage, or the last? We'll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, readers offered their advice.

Kit Case of McLean had a fairly straightforward suggestion. Start with a "standard" password that you've used for years. Say, "example," for example. "Append year and quarter," Kit wrote. "Today that would be '93' as we are in the third quarter of 2009. When the time to change comes, change it to 'example94.' "

"Or just write it on a Post-It note and stick that to the side of the monitor."

Gwen Jenkins had this suggestion: "Choose a base password that is easy to remember: 'Computermustdie' or 'Oxford.' Make sure it conforms to capitalization and length requirements. Add the current two-digit month: 'Computermustdie07' or 'Oxford07.' When you're next prompted to change, simply change the '07' to '10' (assuming you are next prompted to change in October)."

From there things get a bit more complicated. When McLean's John Varela worked someplace requiring frequent password changes, he started with "iiaamahs1o3."

What could that gobbledy-gook possibly be? Those are the first letters of the words that start Coleridge's poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner": "It is an ancient mariner and he stoppeth one of three."

"Thirty days later I changed to 'btlgbagenwstm' -- 'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye now wherefore stoppeth thou me?' Then: 'tbdiowaianok': 'The bridegroom's door is open wide and I am next of kin.' "

Wrote John: "And so forth for over 600 lines, after which you can start over, assuming you haven't first reached retirement, which is what I did."

One problem: Who memorizes poetry any more? Even John admits it's rare. He said he learned this trick from a lecturer 20 years ago. The lecturer claimed he once suggested the method at another company and the next day half the log-in passwords were "Mhall": "Mary had a little lamb."

Epic poetry not working for you? Phill Gross of Purcellville suggests song lyrics. "Take the first letter of each word in a line of lyrics and make that your password, e.g.: 'When I was so much younger than today' creates the password 'wiwsmytt.' To satisfy other rules, convert 'i' to 1 and maybe the 's' to 5, and capitalize the first or last letter. That will give you 'W1w5mytt,' which should make your persnickety PC happy and should be (relatively) easy to remember as long you've been taking your ginkgo biloba regularly."

Laurel's Ted Ying is a computer security engineer for a federal agency. He recommends structuring passwords around old addresses, places you once lived or once sent a lot of mail to. Take, for example, 1234 Main Street, Anytown, MD 56789. Wrote Ted: "You can use '1234MainSt.' or '1234Mn.Street' or '1234MS.AtMd' -- for Anytown, Maryland."